


Its Children

by TulipFluff



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Gen, Non-human POV, Origin Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:06:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28853271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TulipFluff/pseuds/TulipFluff
Summary: Chapter 1: The novelty of singularity begins to wear on It.Chapter 2: The Turtle creates the Universe and cheats the system at bit.
Relationships: Maturin | The Turtle & Pennywise (IT)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 4





	1. The Spider's Children

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own It.

Its latest clutch of eggs sat unhatched in the nest, and It snarled with many mouths in frustration. Hundreds of eggs around the walls of Its cavernous nest and not a single hatchling.

The eggs It laid should be glowing from within with a fiery light and floating, oh, _floating_ in the air when It wakes from hibernation. Instead, poking one dark egg with the tip of a long claw drained nothing but a thick black goo. Twenty-seven years, and the eggs were duds. Eventually, It ate the clutch lest they rot in the nest.

This was Its seventh clutch, and Its seventh failure. It gnashed many teeth and grew large, large enough to drape folds of Itself in coils around the large, empty cavern. Fresh from hibernation, It pondered Its next move.

It had never paid much mind to Its own kind when It resided in the Macroverse. The sky had glittered with Its kind, hungry maws that devoured everything. It had eaten whole worlds to the core. Occasionally, It had found clutches laid by Others of its kind and It had eaten them to cull the competition, but never even thought of trying to kill the Others that had laid the eggs.

In the Macroverse, the Verse sang with the echoes of its kind across all distances. When It had followed Maturin from the hole in the Macroverse to this one, It had been rendered nearly catatonic at the silence that awaited It. It had slept for millennia, adjusting to the new ringing Its head.

Eventually, Maturin’s creations came to fruition. The silence at least could be counteracted by the buzzing thoughts of the life forms brushing Its mind. It ate the dinosaurs of old, and then the mammals that followed them. Eventually, It adjusted to eating rabbits with thrumming heartbeats, and eventually, It found the humans.

It hated Maturin, but at least the old Turtle had nudged the humans into existence. Their fears and imaginations were complex, tasty treats that lifted It from a predator to an artist.

It ate the last of Its clutch, a disappointing, slimy snack. It had no stomach, no intestines to twist, just a maw of teeth all the way down until the Deadlights burned everything away, and still Its insides twisted at the cloying taste. Perhaps next time, It would simply let the eggs rot away. Its faces twisted at the resignation of _next cycle’s_ dud clutch.

The caverns were depressing It. Rarely did It spend much time here, merely curling in the impact crater to hibernate and laying Its eggs in the safety of the chamber depths. Instead, It lifted up towards the trophy room, a towering monument to the last few centuries of fun It had had. Before humans, It had collected bones and feathers, and even now, a few animal skulls and errant feathers remained.

Now, It hoarded the treasures its prey brought with it, toys and clothes and the detritus of every day human life, fascinating toys for It to turn about in Its claws.

Up here, It changed into Its favorite form, the clown. Before the circus came to Derry, It had often worn vestiges of its time with the Shokopiwah tribe, monstrous birds and wolverines and toothy, cannibalistic monsters. The forms were nice, comfortable in their own ways, but It liked the _shape_ of humans and human-like monsters. It had no true form, but when It manifested in the physical world, It found that human hands were delightfully dexterous and could twist and turn things about.

When the circus first came to Derry, It had been… _mesmerized_. A week passed without incident or fear in Derry as It had skulked over the whole circus act, studying every person, creature, and act with rapturous glee.

A caged lion with a title proclaiming it _The King of Beasts_ had delighted It. One night under the lion’s wary gaze, It had taken the shape of a lion, angering the beast before seeming to melt and shift, the jaws cracking open into a hundred tooth smile. The beast had cowered before long, and then It had broken the cage and stolen the beast away. Children had cried for weeks, imagining a beast stalking the fields. Their eyes hadn’t _quite_ been playing tricks on them either.

The clowns had caught Its attention the most, the star most clearly of all. _Pennywise the Dancing Clown_ had delighted children and It watched little crowds cluster about the clown tent. Pennywise wasn’t the only clown, and acrobats tumbled about too. It watched, thinking, _Well, I can do that too_ , when acrobats delighted children with flying spirals in the air.

The contortionists had delighted and horrified the children in equal measure. It had scoffed at their supposed _bonelessness_ , and slurped them down like noodles contemptuously. It was easy to wear the shape of one of the contortionists at a later show, slowly twisting its form into more and more broken shapes until the children watching had gone from joy to terror as It twisted its spine like a corkscrew and spun its head, splitting its face with a predator’s smile.

The clown, though… It watched in shadows as children regarded the clowns with delight and apprehension, frightened by their bright, unmoving smiles and wild natures, but drawn in by the same. Every time the clowns performed a trick, It felt that moment of fear, the trepidation of the children when they wondered, _Will I like this trick?_ It liked that little taste of fear and the way these children couldn’t resist it, drawn back to the vibrant circus act because they still wanted to know _Will I like it?_

Eventually It had eaten half the circus and a good chunk of the town before It had laid a clutch of eggs. The body of Bob Gray had been held in Its claws like a teddy bear that cycle, and It had gone to sleep giddy thinking, _This will be the one_. It hadn’t been. Another clutch of lifeless eggs. The air here was infertile, and slowly It was realizing the conditions in this universe were _wrong_. Maturin had played a great joke on It.

Now, It was _alone_. It was slowly realizing that would not change. The universe the Turtle created had been a trap all along. Sometimes, It remembered It hadn’t even _liked_ the Others, but It had seen them and passed them and the silence now was… _suffocating_.

“You’re gOiNg to DrIve me CrAzy,” It whispered into the damp air. Maybe It heard the Turtle laughing at It. Maybe the laughter was only in Its mind. 

It scratched long claws against the old carnival wagon that made itself a centerpiece to the trophies and growled. There, the lion’s skull resting inside. It tapped a claw against the old bones, thoughtfully.

A scent trickled down the sewer lines and stirred It.

The eggs were tasteless and unsatisfying, but the prey that lived up above were tantalizing. It sniffed, lifting Its lips at the scent of heavy rain in the air. One quick meal to settle Its nerves.


	2. The Turtle's Children

Life in the Macroverse is a bit like typing a story while holding Backspace. Maturin watches as it puts the finishing flourish on the world it built, and already can feel the oncoming swarm of Spiders. Creation is commonplace in the Verse, but Life is rare. Maturin builds a world of snow and wants to watch every fractal pattern in every flake as they form, but the Spiders are already amassing. Another world is built. Another world is destroyed.

The cycle is fast in the Verse. Create-Destroy-Restart. There are other Turtles building Creation nearby, if nearby is defined in astronomical terms, and Spiders that follow to devour. Maturin wants to build foundations, then _build_ upon them. It wants to leave Creation in its wake, to watch the systems it builds mutate and begin to create themselves.

Maturin builds another world and watches as the Spiders tear it down.

There are rules even older than the Turtles and the Spiders. Who made them, no one knows, but Maturin feels them in its bones when it watches Rifts crackle to life and then quickly dissipate in the swirling chaos of the Macroverse. **_Do Not Touch the Rifts_** echoes in its mind as Maturin waits and watches and builds. The Rifts appear randomly, crackling like lightning and shrieking like a wind tunnel, momentary glimpses into the wide, unknown Multiverse, before closing with a _S N A P_ like they never existed. Create. Destroy. Restart.

Maturin knows better than to touch one.

Another world is built, then devoured, and Maturin tumbles through the next Rift it sees. It doesn’t see the Spider watching nearby, the curious tilt of a head, the rocket motion as the Spider gives chase. Maturin hits the Rift and tumbles into a storm of chaotic energy, is nearly torn apart as the Multiverse shreds it. A mass of limbs and claws and teeth hits Maturin as it falls through existence. There is nothing but the shriek of air buffeting every sense Maturin possesses, but it recognizes a Spider when it sees one. They grapple briefly in the tornado, but quickly turn to clinging to the only steady thing as the storm tries to flay them.

They scream.

\- - - -

They exit the Macroverse with a **_B A N G_** that echoes in the absolute silence they face. There is nothing. Not a single psychic sound greets them, a quiet so absolute from the chaos of the storm. They tumble, the Spider clinging to the Turtle’s back, drifting like a comet as Maturin heaves and gags, coughing up galaxies in their wake. Motion sickness leaves Maturin reeling, feeling exactly like the overturned turtles of Earth will one day feel. Helpless. Stranded. Exhausted.

They sleep.

More, the shock of it all steals them of all senses.

The Turtle comes to first.

It sees a Spider floating beside it, a dozen limbs curled in on itself, a hundred eyes blank and unfocused. Slowly, the physical form breaks down, leaving just the Deadlights to orbit in sluggish formation about the Turtle’s head. The Turtle coughs again, gags on the Creation energy that spills out. It finds a rock in the mixture and Maturin lets itself fall towards it.

They land on what will one day be known as Maine.

Maturin sleeps.

\- - - - -

Maturin watches Life unfold on the microscopic level. The thrill is unlike anything Maturin ever created on its own. It has shaped worlds as easily as a sculpture, but now it has left a galaxy to its own meandering. Now, it can leave trails of primordial soup in its wake and watch what chaos gives birth to.

From time to time, it ventures back to the rock it left its brother on, keeps a dozen senses tuned for a hint of motion from the Spider. The silence left it comatose, but lately the Deadlights have begun to flicker with new life.

The Turtle regards its nascent creations, the magic of life not brought about by the Turtle’s efforts but delivered only with time. It watches the Deadlights briefly swirl with energy in their rest.

It cannot kill a Spider. (Nor does it want to.)

Life evolves.

The Turtle’s resolve begins to shift.

\- - - - -

It takes time to build the cage that will one day house the Spider. Every particle is placed with care until a shimmering bubble sphere encases the crater site where the Turtle and the Spider hit Earth. It cannot be seen, it cannot be felt, not by anything that rises to life in this Verse.

It takes 10,000 years to build, but time is only just beginning to have meaning to Maturin.

Life in the Macroverse was swift, and the Turtles and the Spiders were unchanging.

Earth is anything but stable. Creatures live and die, pitifully mortal, but thrillingly so. The world burns and freezes and burns again. The continents shift, the oceans change, life flourishes in the ocean and then walks on land and learns to fly!

The Turtle watches.

And one day, the Spider wakes.

\- - - - -

Maturin is seven galaxies away when it hears a voice hiss **_Let. Me. Out._**

It returns to Earth to find Life has changed it once again, evolved to strange new creatures larger than ever, and it marvels for a moment at what humans will one day call _dinosaurs_.

Maturin does not have long to gawk before the Spider slams a heavy claw against the barrier that traps it.

 ** _Let me out!_** The Spider stamps its feet and rakes its claws against the paper-thin walls that trap it. Sparks fly with every hit, but the wall is solid. Maturin has built it with the very flakes of its own shell, and no single Spider can overcome the power of a Turtle.

 ** _What will you do?_** Maturin asks and the Spider straightens up regally.

**_I will devour. I am the Destruction. I am the Consumption. I am the Eater of Worlds!_ **

**_Perhaps that was the way of things_** , Maturin says, and the Spider clicks its claws expectantly against the barrier. The Spider’s many eyes track the lifeforms around them, puzzling over the small creatures that dart about in the foliage. Life never evolved so far in the Macroverse. It barely sparked before a Spider swallowed it.

 ** _That is your world now,_** the Turtle tells the Spider, and Maturin leaves it raging.

\- - - - -

The Spider cannot beat the barrier into submission. It cannot dig under it or fly above it. The Deadlights cannot burn it away. It rages in the Turtle’s mind, a shrieking wrathful voice, but the Turtle has endured the silence of a lone Universe for so long, the noise is almost welcome. And when it grows tired of shrieking, the silence, too, is welcome.

Even silent, Maturin is aware of the Spider’s presence, a secondary spark of Other in the wide Universe, felt no matter where the Turtle wanders as it watches Life unfold.

Truly, it doesn’t wish its brother harm.

Neither though, will it allow the Spider to run free.

\- - - - -

**_Why did you follow me?_ **

**_That’s what Spiders_ do _._**

\- - - - -

The Spider takes to sleeping. For a while, it spends its waking hours slaughtering the sphere of territory the Turtle allows it. It may do as it pleases, but eventually even that novelty wears off.

The dinosaurs’ time ends, and Maturin waits. Life evolves. Mammals rise in their place.

The Spider lays a clutch of eggs, and Maturin waits. The eggs do not hatch.

Perhaps the Rift tore them apart too much, or perhaps this Universe was simply not made for their kind. Maturin does not deign its brother’s cursing with replies.

There’s something different now.

\- - - - -

Time means little to Maturin, but the speed of development from the humans almost gives it motion sickness again. It watches as humans create and destroy in equal measure. It tells its brother of their accomplishments and atrocities, earning some small matter of acknowledgment from the Spider.

A tribe settles in the Spider’s territory while it hibernates, and then the Spider torments them until they flee. It grows spiteful and sadistic with its first taste of _human imagination_. It does what no Spider has ever done.

It changes.

It develops taste first, parsing out the flavors of matter, and then finding it has a preference. It learns to draw out the hunt, and it never forgets the taste of human fear. Trappers settle in its territory and it devours them all.

Colonists settle in its territory and it learns _restraint_. Maturin watches as the Spider picks and chooses its meals, careful now not to overstep and panic the town. It dives into collecting, quickly hoarding when before it might simply have destroyed down to the last molecule. Its old forms were indescribable masses of teeth and claws and limbs, but now it wears the shape of human story monsters and acrobatic performers. It dances and sings and gives itself names.

It goes, quite simply, insane.

**Author's Note:**

> I really like not humanizing It. Enjoy my own personal take on the Macroverse and whatever It is.
> 
> I want to write more for the IT fandom and writing in general, but... boy, posting activates some pretty intense anxiety, particularly if I intended to write more than one chapter. I hope people like what little I manage to pry out to the world! Thanks for reading <3


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